About

Practical, truthful, applicable, personable, humorous, helpful – that’s Sandy Creek Stirrings! The goal of Sandy Creek Stirrings is to “stir up” Christians to do something great for the cause of Christ! Steeped in a heavy dose of Biblical, factual, and logical truth, you can expect practical content, personable listening, and compelling topics that lead to applicable living. You can count on every episode to give you something that you can immediately put into practice within your daily life. Welcome and thank-you for listening to Sandy Creek Stirrings!

With episodes released every Friday morning, you can listen on all of the major podcasting platforms, such as: Apple Podcasts, Google, Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor, and more!  You can even listen on our website!  Our practical, truthful, and applicable content features many exciting formats:

• “Apologetics” episodes that teach you how to defend issues of the faith in a Biblical, logical, factual, eloquent, and friendly manner.
  Teaching episodes that deep dive into the heart of the issue and allow listeners to walk away with a deeper understanding of the subject matter.
• Interview episodes with seasoned men of God who have “been there and done that”.  These episodes are filled with applicable wisdom to input in your life.
• Episodes that feel like we are just friends sitting down for a good conversation with a cup of coffee.
• Humorous yet compelling every day truths derived from real life stories to encourage to “keep on keepin’ on.

What do we mean by “Practical”, “Truthful”, and “Applicable”?

PRACTICAL: Teaching, discussions, and topics you can take home or to work and use that same day. We aren’t trying to reach religious scholars; we are trying to reach the average Christian just like me and you.

TRUTHFUL: Skip the fakes and fluff; we want truth. Though it may not always be politically correct or easy to swallow, truth is a necessity – we have enough fallacies in the world.

APPLICABLE: You can have all the teaching and truth you want but where the rubber meets the road is application: Do you really live like you believe it?

In each episode, we want to make sure that these critical elements are not lost in this busy world. It is our desire to see you walk away from each and every episode having not only enjoyed the content and having a laugh or two, but also with a heart intent on changing this world for a cause worth dying for. At Sandy Creek Stirrings, you can count on receiving practical truth that you can actually use.

The Name

In American history, one man—perhaps more than any other—left a spiritual impact that still echoes today. His name was Shubal Stearns.

Born in 1706, Stearns grew up in a religious home but without a personal relationship with Christ. During the Great Awakening, he found the Savior and was scripturally baptized. From that moment on, he lived with a burning desire—not for fame or recognition—but that God might be magnified in the sight of all people.

And so he preached. With fervor. With fire. With a zeal that stirred hearts and unsettled the comfortable. His preaching was not polished but powerful—so much so that those who loved truth clung to his words, while those who despised it tried to silence him. He left no journal of his thoughts, no record of his accomplishments. Why? He was too busy living them.

After a fruitful season in Virginia, Stearns followed God’s call to North Carolina. In 1755, he founded the Sandy Creek Baptist Church. The people were religious but lost, and like Paul in Acts 17, his spirit was stirred within him. He could not sit idle—he must preach Christ! Souls were saved. Lives were changed. Churches began springing up. In just two years, Sandy Creek grew from one congregation to nine. Within 17 years, 42 churches had been planted. Through Stearns’s influence and the men he trained, the Gospel rippled outward into South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, Georgia, and beyond.

One man. One fire. One stirring of the heart. And the world was changed.

Stories like this leave me both excited and ashamed. Excited—because God still has the power to use ordinary men to accomplish extraordinary things. Ashamed—because too often we settle for weak, shallow Christianity. Ours is an age of apathy. Zeal has grown rare. Too many young men sit on their hands, waiting for a lightning bolt from heaven to tell them what to do. Shubal Stearns did not wait twenty years to “find himself.” He simply obeyed—and God used him mightily.

But there are others—the ones who may not know their path yet, but whose hearts burn with desire. They only need a spark. A word of encouragement. Someone to say, “With God, you can do it!” Peter wrote that we are to “stir up” one another by way of remembrance. That is my desire here: to stir your heart. To kindle your fire. To push you toward something greater.

Oh, that God would give us men stirred as Paul was stirred. Men stirred as Shubal Stearns was stirred. Men who cannot sit idle while the world perishes around them. May God give us today what He gave to Sandy Creek in 1755:

A Sandy Creek Stirring.

Who Am I?

My name is Joshua Gimenez. I was born on Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, while my father was serving in the U.S. Air Force. At just three years old, I came to the most important moment of my life. Though I had grown up hearing about God and the Bible, I realized I was lost and needed a Savior. One night, by my wood-framed bed, I called on the Lord Jesus Christ to come into my heart and save me. That decision changed my eternity, and I would not trade it for anything in this world.

When I was ten years old, God called me to preach. From that day, my life’s course was clear — ministry. Along the way, the Lord gave my family the privilege of serving on the mission field and later led us to plant Victory Springs Independent Baptist Church in High Springs, Florida.

Since 2015, I have served at VSIBC, first bi-vocationally, and then in December 2019, I joined the staff full-time as Assistant to the Pastor. I also lead our youth group, direct the music and choir, and help oversee many of our church ministries.

God has richly blessed me with my wonderful wife, Tabitha, whom I married in 2017. She serves faithfully as our nursery coordinator and is actively involved in many of our ladies’ ministries. Together, we are raising four incredible children: Liberty, Freedom, Victory, and Patriot.

If you would like to hear more about me — including my personal testimony, background in missions, college years, and how God led me here — you can listen to a series I recorded entitled “My Story Won’t Wow You”. The series is used to teach people that your life story (aka: testimony) may not have the “WOW” factor of some, but every person has a story to tell and a lesson to teach. You can find that series on our Episodes page, under the section entitled “Episode Categories”. You can also go back to Episode #88 for the first episode of that series.